Blues legend Pinetop Perkins has died

Pinetop Perkins: BluesmanBlues legend Joe Willie "Pinetop" Perkins died today in Austin. He was 97.

He was 97 and was scheduled to play the Aladdin Theater next month.

Last month, he won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album. According to the Austin American-Statesman, Perkins was out on Saturday night to check out Bobby Rush's SXSW set.

A snippet of his biography:

"Born Willie Perkins in Belzoni, Mississippi in 1913, Pinetop started out playing guitar and piano at house parties and honky-tonks, but dropped the guitar in the 1940s after sustaining a serious injury in his left arm. He worked primarily in the Mississippi Delta throughout the 1930s and ‘40s, spending three years with Sonny Boy Williamson on the King Biscuit Time radio show on KFFA in Helena, Arkansas.

"... The great irony of Pinetop’s career is that he didn’t blossom as a headliner until his eighth decade – a phenomenon that resulted in the release of 15 solo records in 15 years, beginning in 1992."

In 2007, Perkins celebrated his 94th birthday at the Waterfront Blues Festival, where he appeared numerous times. Via tweet, the festival said:

"RIP Pinetop...one of our most cherished memories from Waterfront was his set, backed by the Paul deLay Band."

Here he's at SXSW in 2005: